South Africa will begin issuing import permits to allow genetically engineered white and yellow corn from the U.S., USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service said in a report this week. The agency said there had been issues with those imports that “caused asynchrony with the United States,” but it was informed Nov. 19 those “had been resolved and that import permits will be issued.” USDA added that U.S. corn exporters could see high demand from South Africa, which just experienced a drought that caused a 22% drop in corn production and domestic prices to surge.
USDA is accepting applications from exporters for its upcoming trade mission to Guatemala, the agency's Foreign Agricultural Service said last week. The March 3-7 trade mission will feature meetings with Central American importers, market briefings on the region, site visits and opportunities to speak with USDA officials.
A new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that arms trafficking in Latin America is increasingly connected to the U.S. firearms industry, including through illegal and legal exports.
A bipartisan, bicameral group of four lawmakers announced Nov. 25 the introduction of a bill to create a State Sponsor of Unlawful or Wrongful Detention (SSWD) designation, which would allow the State Department to impose sanctions and other penalties on countries that wrongfully detain Americans.
A new Bureau of Industry and Security license exception that could allow U.S. exporters to continue shipping certain advanced technologies to a list of close American allies is promising, but it presents some “limitations” if not implemented correctly, the Center for Strategic and International studies said this week.
No policy option available to the U.S. government, including lifting export controls, will persuade China to stop trying to de-Americanize and decouple its semiconductor equipment sector, the Center for Strategic and International Studies argued in a new report this week.
Recently issued Bureau of Industry and Security guidance that outlined the agency’s due diligence expectations for banks (see 2411010030) was a “warning shot” to financial institutions that they must take export compliance seriously, Meshkat Law said in a November client alert. The firm said the new guidance dispelled “any notions that compliance with the [Export Administration Regulations] is just for exporters.”
The Bureau of Industry and Security added more than 100 entities to the Entity List and released a new set of semiconductor-related export controls on Dec. 2, introducing new license requirements for both U.S.-origin and foreign-produced chip tools and publishing new red flag guidance on how companies should be vetting Chinese chip factories.
Although President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to dismantle the federal bureaucracy in Washington, a key architect of recent DOJ export control and sanctions initiatives believes those efforts will echo through the next administration.
New guidelines issued by the European Banking Authority are designed to help EU financial firms set common policies and procedures to comply with sanctions, export controls and other “restrictive measures.” The document offers separate guidelines for large banks and other sets of financial institutions, such as payment service providers and crypto-asset service providers, and includes recommendations around sanctions screening, risk assessments, due diligence and customer monitoring.